Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

This time next week Christmas will have come and gone, though our celebrations, like many other people’s, will still be in full flow. This will be my last blog post of the year so I wish you all a really lovely Christmas and I will see you in 2025.

My Christmas picture (above) shows the decorations in Seven Dials. They are really pretty. I posted this picture last month together with a bit of history about the sundial that all the lights are arranged around. You can read about it HERE.

At this time of year, writers often like to include something from one of their books that references Christmas. That’s always a problem for me. My characters are usually away from England at Christmas time and are often quite busy fighting wars. Christmas hardly features. There’s more than usual about Christmas in my current WIP, Burke and the War of 1812, but, even so, it barely rates a mention. Burke has gone off to do something important somewhere comfortable, leaving poor William Brown, who often gets left doing the hard work, to spend winter living with the Shawnee tribe in a camp in what is now Indiana. Here’s his experience of Christmas.

Christmas came and went. William wasn’t sure of the day but he taught the Shawnee some carol tunes which they sang with their own words. William didn’t understand what they were singing and thought he would be happier not knowing, but the tunes provided some comfort as the shortest day came and went and the weather grew colder.

I hope your Christmas is more fun than his.

I’m always impressed by people who turn out short stories at the drop of a hat. I did do a special Christmas short story last year but I’m not going to manage this feat twice. Last year’s story was not historical but features Galbraith and Pole, the main characters in my Urban Fantasy series. It’s set soon after the two of them meet (in Something Wicked) and it’s an unashamedly sentimental tale of Christmas Eve. If you haven’t already read it, it’s still available HERE.

That’s all for this week, this Christmas and this year. I wish you all the best for the holidays and hope people give you lots of books.

Season’s Greetings!

Next Friday (when my blog post would usually come out) will be Christmas Eve. What do you mean, you knew that already? It snuck up on me so fast I can hardly believe it. That’s the trouble with retailers starting the run-up to Christmas in October – I just blank it because It’s obviously not going to happen for ages and then I suddenly realise that it’s here.

Anyway, I think you will have better things to do next week than read my blog – at least I hope so (unless Boris Johnson has another cruel trick up his sleeve and we’re all stuck at home desperately looking something to occupy ourselves). So today’s blog is just to wish you all the very best of Christmases. I think we all deserve that after last year.

My Christmas picture is from the Astors’ private chapel at Cliveden, one of the places we were able to go to as the country finally started to open up again. We’d never been there before but the grounds are amazing and I do recommend a visit.

Anyway, that’s it from my blog for 2021. I’ve published something every week (sometimes twice a week) right through the year and now I’m taking my annual break. Stay safe, stay well, and I’ll see you next year (when there will be another James Burke book to entertain you).

Have a wonderful Christmas (or midwinter Festival of your choice).